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Geiselman And Peterson Claim Machado Seaside Pro Junior

Rob Machado just gave his homebreak of Seaside Reef one of the best pro junior events around. And his beloved break gave right back, with two days of classic Seaside conditions, giving North America’s top youngsters the sections and lips needed to do damage.

Evan Geiselman stood out the entire event, as he usually does when he is fully dialed in. As Pat O’Connell said, “Evan puts a smile on my face.”

The young Floridian’s super suave rail work transitioned him well from the outside reef to the inside sandbar where he could throw his tail at will. And when Evan starts things off with those precise fronthand air reverses it usually means lights out. Evan nabbed the score and wave of the event in his semifinal heat today by stalling out a fronthand reverse and holding it backwards for a good few seconds, toying with hydrodynamics. It rang in at 9.5. As Evan said of the score and his first victory since winning the 2010 ASP North America Pro Junior Series Title, “I like to think I can pull out a big score anytime I need to. I haven’t really started off the year how I wanted to. So this feels good.”

Evan is chasing Kolohe Andino’s lead in this year’s series and put himself in much better position today for a potential repeat, trailing now by. And Kolohe finished right behind Evan today, just barely taking that runner up spot by half a point. Kolohe was surfing incredibly precise and technical, Mick Fanning-esque in that sense. It’s quite apparent that Evan and Kolohe feed off the other’s surfing. They like to push each other’s limits and have the abilities to do so. In the final Kolohe launched a massive and incredibly inverted fronthand air reverse. It seemed like he was so high up he didn’t know how to land it. He got close, but it didn’t even matter because of where it put the pro junior level at.

All the pro juniors were lighting up the entire event. Chase Wilson linked a good left at the buzzer of his semifinal all the way through to the sandbar and capping it with a straight lien to move from third to first for a finals appearance. Dane Zaun’s frontside air reverses were on point more than they were off, which meant he was landing some big ones. Keanu Asing was throwing big boy, straight-up snaps on his backhand. Lakey Peterson comboed the field in the Girls final. She was tossing the fins and laying down serious carves.

The North American Pro Juniors lit up Seaside and the status of pro junior surfing is blowing through the roof—Evan Geiselman and Lakey Peterson being crowned the champions today. The Machado Seaside Classic, as I’m calling it, adds another event for the pro juniors to continue to raise the levels of their surfing. Cardiff cougars were out and about while Reef girls were hanging and doing what they do best. Tanner Hendrickson played in the final of the ping pong tournament against Rob and took home a Bob Hurley surfboard. Rob summed up the inaugural event best himself: “The kids are ripping, the sun is out, the waves are pumping. I’ve been looking for a reason to complain and I haven’t found one. The Marshall boys were out there surfing blown up Reef sandals. I’m super stoked on this. Good old Seaside pulling through.”—Ryan Brower